"I will make certain that the Clerk's office keeps pace with upgrades in technical equipment and I will make certain that the employees of the Clerk's office receive continuing education in operating and maintaining the office's information management system."

Hand that earnest promise from 2000 to any lawyer who practices in Cook County. Then show your lawyer pal Brown's 2004 campaign pledge, also in response to a Tribune questionnaire, to "make sure the courtroom operates efficiently and that all case files are available for court." Then recount the similar assurances from 2008, 2012 and 2016 campaigns that, any century now, the clerk of Cook County Circuit Court really will modernize her office.

By now your lawyer friend is sputtering expletives and you're dodging thrown file folders. Because the grim truth is that Dorothy Brown, now in her 16th year running this patronage-stuffed office, specializes in promising progress, then blaming everyone in sight when it never, ever, materializes.

This isn't just a disaster for Cook County property taxpayers and a slew of flummoxed lawyers. A court system influences the lives of many people, some of whose pasts and futures get waylaid, if not lost, in Brown's antiquated operation.

Not that Brown's inability to do the job kept the Cook County Democratic Party from endorsing her last August for re-election to a fifth term. But drumbeats about a federal corruption probe were intensifying. So in October the party dumped Brown and endorsed Michelle Harris, a Chicago alderman with few qualifications but lots of political cronies.

Louder alarms went off in November when the U.S. attorney's office accused a Brown employee of lying to a grand jury. Imagine the conniptions among the ruling Dems when they learned from the federal indictment that the grand jury was investigating "possible criminal violations in connection with the purchasing of jobs and promotions" in Brown's office. Whoops! The Dems have to be wondering where that probe will lead.

And Harris? She comes from the 8th Ward operation that the late Cook County Board President John Stroger ruled. Just what this way-too-political office doesn't need in 2016: a clerk of court who's somebody somebody sent. We gave Harris every chance to tell us why she can do the job, or even find the office. But she wouldn't respond to our questionnaire and ducked our candidates debate.

Which brings us to the third and most capable contender by far. The Tribune strongly endorses Jacob Meister, a former U.S. Senate candidate whose 25 years practicing in Cook County courts have shown him how desperately out of whack Brown's operation is.

Answering our questionnaire, Meister synthesized in one sentence much of what's wrong. Brown's office, he wrote, "is broken operationally and ethically, steeped in cronyism and riddled with inefficiencies and antiquated technology." He says he's "seen firsthand how lost paperwork and hastily scrawled handwritten notes, which is a common occurrence in the Clerk's office, can leave cases and lives in limbo."

Meister founded a statewide civil rights organization focused on LGBT issues. He has served as managing attorney of a law firm and — bonus! — has litigated cases in modern court systems across the U.S.

Spend an hour with the energetic Meister and you come away convinced: He knows how to fix this moribund office and has the passion to do it. We hope voters give him the chance.

A version of this article appeared in print on March 09, 2016, in the News section of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "End 16 years of Dorothy Brown's failed promises in this patronage-stuffed office" —
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